Rebellion
by skywalker05
Summary: It's far too possible to be immuned to love by tragedy, and  far too plausible to be immuned to love by lack of it. LukeOC.
1. Rebellion

**Cy-Raxx Neirharmn records these things on 21st 2nd month judged by Yavin 4, 40th 5th month judged by Coruscant. This docreader is protected by a ScanCom security spike. Password **

**Access granted.**

**A lot has happened to me.**

**I think if I looked back on me, no, forward, from before the war, I would be so amazed at who I am now, at what I have, at how _everything_--came. And is still coming. Nothing's perfect, no, the bruises mar the sea of my self. But how to read my life---well once upon a time I was a Rebel pilot. We had this one mission into a fleet of Star Destroyers--I tended to help with demolitions--**

"Move, rebel scum." The Imperial pilot mumbled from behind his mechanical mask, and he poked his blaster muzzle into my back again. I wanted to turn around and angrily, senselessly tell him that it wasn't my fault he captured me instead of blowing me out of the sky.

My X-Wing behind us, the Lambdas, little droids, and turbolifts, the armored pilot, the stormtroopers who had surrounded me while the pilot unhooked himself from his ship in its rack--all seemed dead and lonely. That's why I fought, sometimes. The Empire with its metal wonders and faceless troops obeying a hooded emperor would desensitize the galaxy through crowded, casual cruelty. The Alliance and hope of a democratic future held love for me, life, and breath.

Metal whined and some lasers burst sparks from the wall between this TIE hanger and the next, a room separated from us by a blue energy seal and from space by nothing. The pilot gripped my shoulder. Two, three X-Wings slid on repulsors into that bay. After me? The closest pilot jumped out decked in bandoleers of thermal detonators--after the Star Destroyer then. The second one rushed to the high console for the energy fields, blasters in hand, and I recognized him--the only Pho Ph'eahian in our squadron. There were three stormtroopers across the bay, so I kicked my pilot under the arm and slapped the blaster out of his hand. My palm stung now but I picked up the gun, fast. Fellow grunt taught me that one, before I was a pilot and brave enough to realize that the Alliance didn't have any grunts at all. Funny how deep thought can be from one action or perception, and take seconds.

While I got the unfamiliar gun to stun and backpedaled, the last ally came to the Force field and waited, shifting his weight. I recognized him then, with the five hatch marks and gold star on his helmet, from the Yavin campaign. My Imp escort ran toward the stormtroopers, and I shot one of them while missing the pilot. I just wanted to get out of there, though my X-Wing was battered beyond battlefield repair. I didn't like not trusting my own mechanical skills.

I ducked behind a crate. Blasterbolts pattered like rain over the floor for a flurry. Stun shots? The blue field went down in a few flickers and Five, Skywalker, rushed in. Wonderful kid, this hero; loyal, not much longer a fighter than I, and he had welcomed me to Red group for this my second campaign. I backpedaled more. Luke ducked beside me.

'We're trying to take the ship from inside. Han Solo, one bay over," and he pointed, "is taking up evacs."

I nodded. Wild-eyed, Luke leaned out from the boxes as I stretched to the top and got off a few shots blind. Were they getting more troops, for two Rebels? I'd never been that important _before_. More shots around me, not stun rings. A different whine-shriek, and a bright blue tube of shine appeared low in Luke's hands. The next hail of laser went some wide, and he reached that blade out to rebound them.

I had had a picture book about Jedi Knights at home, which my parents would hide if company came over. The cartoonish holos had practiced their magic on my world, Antarion, not an enemy starcraft, but their stances had been Skywalker's.

I kicked my pilfered blaster to him, in case, and went to Solo's ship because more of our people were coming in all over, force shields winking on and off.


	2. Hoth

**Second Entry**

I thought it was Han who slapped my hand at Echo Base with the feel of another glove against mine. I had pleaded to go out on early patrol, and now stretched out on my ship's long nose to take in the warmth. Cold was creeping in again, and none had come to check on me personally instead of statistically. Should be expected...I had not much in common with the older soldiers.

Not much in common with people, really. Just Yaz, here, a catlike Kushiban from my homeworld. Long summers we had spent together--now this eternal winter.

Surprised , I said, "Ay, Han."

The other held on. I looked down.

"Luke!" I jumped down and hugged him to pause momentum. Commander Luke now, and I just an in-case evac leader, because they recognized my organization skills but mistrusted my age. I had no extreme heroic resumé yet. I hadn't seen Luke since promotion. I wanted to hold on to him now, but I had to snap away and say, "I'm not sleeping on the job, sir. I had a patrol run in the morning."

He smiled. 'You called me Han!"

"Well it's been a while." It had.

He offered me a cup of caf which I accepted and did not drink, but bared my hands around it and breathed in the warmth. Warmth that mirrored contentment tinged with fear, always but ignorable.

I asked if there was any sign of attack while we sat around the _Millennium Falcon'_s boarding ramp. As far as I knew, Han Solo saw me as another orange-suited fanatic.

"Nothing on my run." Luke grimaced.

"Oh no," Han crowed. "Just the cold. I rescued him."

Questioning glance. Luke shook his head. Alarms started wailing.

I had grown rather fond of Echo Base. No one else seemed to feel this way as war machines stomped around us and stormtroopers--my commlink said mysterious and terrible Darth Vader as well--infiltrated our hallways. I wasn't in the trenches, because the man I had been supposed to replace was. I stood at the secondary hanger feeling useless, keeping my visor free of steam. The implant beside my right temple, regulating my eyes, clicked against the metal. My parents would see this as such an exotic and frightening setting. My father worried, but mother knew I was where I wanted to be.

I took the second transport up, full of droids and techs and spies and battered soldiers. I couldn't show grief. Just radio back, "The second transport is away."


	3. Endor

**Third Entry**

Endor was the most chaos I have ever experienced. I came down gasping for breath, squished in a corner on the short, tangled tube of my mask because sealant was flapping open on the other side of the cockpit. That was a fun ride down into the forest, hoping to land cleanly or at least directly into the enemy. I felt angry, concerned, futilely unable to know half of what was going on.

My zippy A-Wing jerkily set down, nose toward a valley clustered heavier with towering trees. The Death Star sat high in the sky as I clambered out when the shields settled and cooled metal skin. A wind swept over me then, hot and disturbed. The Death Star was enfolded in a globe of yellow sparks. I tensed, and then screamed with joy as that lurking shape in the sky faded to detritus and emptiness.

**W**hen Yaz finally picked me up--my emergency beacon, but not comm, functioned--shards and sparks were falling in little storms out of the atmosphere.

**N**o one said there were native sentients on Endor. They were not what we expected, these 'Ewoks', who worshipped trees and cooed over anything shiny, that could fly or fight Imps and put our squadrons up in their expansive, amazing, daring tree-houses.

I danced, with Yaz or alone to my exultance, in the music and the relief, in the cool evening. Holorecorders were going off all over, and pilot's helmets were thrown in the air to clatter underfoot or over the edge of the railing.

Luke kept apart too. I saw him just staring into space for a time--now, Commander and Jedi Knight. I'd just heard things about him, until the Death Star briefing room when he came in late with eyes only for Leia Organa, and General Solo's mission.

Real pity I didn't have a title yet. Subcommander of Blue Group, until my crash, as of the present, and that didn't count.

Skywalker looked different from all of us, hooded and cloaked from the sadness in his stance. I found him thus, standing apart from the others. After a time I came up next to him, and he turned when I so hesitantly touched his arm, showing none of the surprise some did at my quiet, unannounced arrivals. I said, "Everyone will know your name now."

"They should know all of ours. You're all heroes." He was speaking so quietly.

I smiled, sheepish. Didn't feel much like a hero. "I crashed just before the Death Star exploded." But it exploded! What mattered! Part of me said this. Pause. "And they're saying you killed the emperor."

He looked...old. He was but a few years older than me, by standard, and now his eyes spoke histories of...sadness? Knowledge? Emotion? Funny how those all look the same. "No." He said. "I'll tell you, but no questions."

I nodded.

"Darth Vader killed the emperor."

My mind reeled. Why? I caught myself from saying. No questions, he wanted. Except one was military-minded. "So is Vader still alive?"

"No." And for some reason he said this with utter quiet sadness. No questions.

We stood there together for a while. It felt silly, after all this time, to find him just another one of the acquaintances of war, but I thought he might think something special of me. I knew I always wanted, or wanted to be, the hero. But I had not grown an inch toward heroic, in deed or literal stature, and here was Luke speaking to me as if no days had gone by since Hoth and the last time I saw him.

I said, because not many of 'them' had been speaking of this and it thrilled in me, "So you are a Jedi? You can, read minds and all of it?"

He laughed a little. For some reason we were being quiet, letting the partying cover up our tones. Then he nodded. "I can sense emotion." He turned away a little, hands on the crude and beautiful wooden railing. "I sense you could love me."

So plain was the surprise that I wasn't all that surprised. Yes, sour fear came, but I only needed to say " I could. But you were the greatest of my denials."

He turned around and took my hands. His right was gloved, another barrier between us, and I wondered dully what had happened to him. "I could love you. But not now." Even still his eyes questioned what I would say, what I would do. "I can't feel anything." he said. "I can see emotions, but not feel anything."

And I knew how this felt, from a long time ago when my parents moved to opposite ends of the planet. Often times I could not feel anything– as he spoke of and as he hurt, and it takes a great darkness to do that. I think I nodded. I think I moved closer to him.

"But I would give you a dance." Luke said, bright and mortal again.

I didn't know how to dance, not anything that could be done with Commander Luke! I stammered, "But I erm don't,.." and he turned away. Released my hands slowly, in a drama I would remember for a long time.


	4. Hidden Base

_A/N: Chapter modified for Matrixyness and Plot-conductivity...actually only for the latter. Thanks, lone reviewer! _

**Fourth Record...**

The clamor of a bandoleer of thermal detonators falling to the floor invaded my brain. More clamor--each of us placed an explosive packet around the tall dark cylindrical shield generator. Deep in the struggling places of Imperial space, we fought like soldiers beyond our time. Most, like me, were topping off our teenage years. War-life would never end...a mop-up crew for the Great Battle, we were mopping up our innocence as well, it seemed...

With the demolitions team I hurried to our insertion point into this floating ring-station, a Corvette that would hook to an umbilical for seconds at a time, checking, in case, and then juke away again, in case. Still TIE fighters divorced from Carida tried to swarm us as, under Mon Mothma and Princess Leia's orders, we maneuvered war into peace by way of more war.

You think about that stuff long on the battlefield you get-- as the others rushed with me, all orange and weapons, interlinked comms silent now but for breathing, the warning lights began to wink red on the hatch ahead of us. Red; immediate evacuation.

Through the hustle people began running, not stormtroopers but others, small humans with vibroshivs and the like--they almost looked like us--someone sidled up to me and I turned and slapped the body of my blaster under his chin, cracking something. So lovely to exist/affect--"Get in!" I shouted, shrill, to all my little band. "Get in the ship!"

As we pressed forward another came at me and I tripped him, not far off but close, with self-defense holds, so that he fell in the line of the others hastening up the crowded passages, their attack like ours having lost all its element of surprise--I ducked and leapt into the airlock. It shivered and closed. I got off a shot at one of the mercs, but don't know if it hit.

**B**ack at base, a forlorn place called Mas Lachyyk, I entertained myself by aiming to use the highest possible tools on the repair shelf.

I climbed from one iron bar to another, always heeding the balance of these platforms temporarily screwed into the three nearby stone walls. A LE repair droid walked in and turned its spherical head-casing up at me. "Do you need aid, miss?"

At least this one could tell I was a female...I arrogantly took one hand off the shelf to run my fingers through my cropped, fluffy hair, remembering that last incident. That had _started _a bad day too..."I'm fine."  
I snagged the desired hydrospanner, swung out over the room on momentum, caught the nearest vertical strut with my free hand, and slid down twoan'half meters or so to the droid, having meant to do the dramatic entrance part but not the sliding down part.

Dramatic entrance because a young human courier was standing at the doorway behind the LE, pushing blue-black hair out of his small eyes. Probably a little younger than me, actually. He held a large commlink. "Neir-har-manpilot?"

"Yeah that's me." The LE sidled out.

"This is for you."

The comm was pretty ordinary looking, except for its casing-shape...had I seen Bothan spies tossing one of these back and forth, boasting of the Hush-86? SoroSuub spy tech? I had some look of confusion.

Militarily, the boy courier said "It's been checked for self-destruct mechanisms and foreign code only. Came in through high priority."

_For me...?_

'Ok. Ah, thanks."

We saluted and moved off.

On the way to my X-Wing--now people were preferring the A-Wings for new workings, but my current older model was practically friendly--I stuck the hydrospanner through one of my many belt loops and inspected the commlink. How did one even open one-way settings on these things...

As I stepped into my ship's docking square, the comm chimed.

I snapped it to my mouth. "Hello?..." Instinct tensed me.

The voice was male, implacable, and unknown to me. "Welcome back."

I swallowed the _"What?"_ jumping into my throat. "Who are you?"

"The commlink is mine. It is very expensive--don't drop it."

I almost said _"Yes sir."_ "Who are you."

"Look up."

I pulled my blaster and aimed it up at the ceiling before looking. A small natural walkway from storage catwalks arched to a emergency escape door just ahead of me.

"See the ladder against the wall."

It was just beyond my ship.

"Use it to get to that hatch."

"Why?" I moved the commlink down and started going toward the tech station in our thin cave base. But I lifted it again when the man spoke, his voice a little breathy and almost recognizable now.

"Not that way. You should know to do what a Jedi tells you."

I stopped immediately. Breathed. Ducked under my ship's nose on the way to the access ladder.

Following that voice, I looked down on our operation.

Small ships of all sizes nestled, constricted, in the tan-rock , raw but for the floors and some, caves. I--and Mon Mothma--didn't like this base. But the planet had air and life, so the Imps didn't expect us to take it for a staging point for raids on their capital ships going in and out of the Carida area. Our shields had held up enough so far, and Mas Lachyyk (not actually named by Wookiees) twirled with a convenient, sensor-facing twin. People moved down there, working or--a Twi'lek couple kissed against the near wall. My expression was allowed to curl in disdain and hurt. No male anything seemed inclined to work at breaking down my barriers.

"Open the hatch." said the commlink.

I did, and levered myself up blaster first, determined to surprise--no one was there on the plateau. Spires of rock, pulled up in the double world's turbulent forming, towered impossibly before the rocky view plunged into a final-seeing canyon on one side and a tame steppe, with green life on its dirt, on the other. "Where are you..." I growled quietly, frightened but--Jedi? What enemy would use a lie like that? So keyed to my recent dreams--

A laugh came form the commlink, a little uncontained. I turned around. In the distance--right up close--which?--stood a cloaked someone.

He moved the veil from my eyes. There was Commander Skywalker, wearing dark green and navy blue fatigues, the orange wristbands of a Special Forces leader, and a great black cloak. An awkward fear grew through me, and then a strange sense of coincidence or deja vu, or resolve, or, er, something...the really weird thing about it was that it erased the fear. The silver casing of a lightsaber (!) hung prominently against his right thigh.

I breathed, "Oh my _deity_."

Luke smiled. His face looked about the same as from Endor, almost scarred, wonderfully familiar. His eyes were darkened by the shadow of his cowl. He was just feet away from me, standing solid.

It would've been nice to have been able to form full sentences. "How..."

He reached out and touched my face, so light like wind. "Impressive, hmm?" His fingers trailed along the line of my jaw.

I stepped away abruptly, immediately, almost into fighting stance, old restrained unexpected anger leaping into play. "What are you trying to do to me? Ssstang--what _are_ you?"

He spread his hands, bowed his head. "I'm sorry." A little fleet smile, normal. "I'm sorry you're not impressable any more."

I glared at him. He dare make me think--he dare touch me now--the dreams--I broke eye contact in favor of the ground. "I'm so vaping impressable."

"I know."

_What's with the flirting, what's with the--what is it--what's with the existing? _I almost shouted, "What do you _want_!"

"I have a proposition for you. Allow me to test you for Jedi potential. My sources note you have had an unusual number of close escapes in wartime." His voice had changed to rote, unhurt.

I pretended to count on my fingers the escapes. "Endor, the _Instigator_, Dantooine twice, what else?"

"Cy stop it please. I just want to talk."

I turned away a little. If the anger stopped I'd be so afraid-- "Don't touch me." It kept running through my head.

"Why."

I wanted to scream at him. He gently put a hand on my drooped shoulder and I shuddered. Why--I never understood why I will not be touched. Not when--

I sighed. He could vaping _read my mind. _I'd, notice, completely missed the part about Jedi potential. What romance does to you-- "I've still loved you for a while, Skywalker. But you didn't exist."

Pause. "I did. I've been so many--look at me Cy."

I wrenched my eyes to his.

Softly he said, "Wouldn't you drown?"

A tear took a track down my cheek. He was...the chronicles had turned to ashes and pits. I threw my arms around his shoulders for his sake. The combination of intrigue and this...incredible loneliness felt so wonderful to emotion-starvation.

He calmly enfolded me. My protests dissolved, I savored everything.

In a time he held me at arm's length. "I've put in all the necessary papers. Come with me to Yavin Four?"

I had to laugh for no reason. "Back to Yavin?"

"I'm starting a Jedi school there. You have the power we need. And..." He rippled into my mind, as if my thoughts had a section like a pool of water. _the consolation I finally need._

I turned away for a moment, just to prove that I could, to what, escape any glamour and espy any treachery?

I nodded. "Sure."


	5. Yavin 4

I'd never been on Yavin 4. The enormous, frightening, beautiful monolith of an amazing campaign before my time smelled like the spring of Antarion. Someone named Corran--he was shrouded in a brown cloak but well built I could tell, just like they're supposed to be, with a rather stern face, and short beard, pleasant to look at like they're supposed to be--met me and took me immediatly down, through tunnels I'll never get back through, through secret ways so I never saw any of the actual base, mad mysterious, with me following this --superman?--and down to a dark, not uncomfortable hot spring-filled _cavern_.

If I were not weirded out by this enough Corran told me that it was normal, part of the Jedi works, and that _Master Skywalker _was here as well.

He loomed suddenly in that firelight, a little bit frightening-and I felt my ferocity well up. It had carried me through battles before.

He gestured, one long hand flat, and Corran Horn slipped away beyond what might be a wall of rock or smoke or

heart?

"Hey." said Luke, human, and I was still turned sideways, fighting-fit, not loving-fit at all.

I think I glared at him. He came out of the fog, sat on an outjut of rock with almost the steaming, odd-colored water at his feet. He hesitated, feared, and that changed most everything-

"This reason you have to be angry at me." He said. "I know it."

"Because of someone else?" I flared.

"Because of you!" Again he stood. "What are you resisting, Cy-Raxx?"

I had the answer in a heartbeat. "Love that won't come."

He stared into me. "And what if it did? I think..." He reached out, touched a strand of my hair, dared the cliche, could he feel my heartbeat race, touched the back of his hand to my neck, warm skin. I turned further away, almost hissed, feeling up against an unliteral wall-a wall, and behind it are monsters that can see me I can't see them. I began to get angry at the Force itself.

He flapped his hands down at his sides. "What did someone _do_ to you? Since Endor? Since Hoth, did I miss it-"

I almost screamed at this dangerous, mystical, overawing, stupid man. "_No-one_ did anything, Luke! _Commander_ Luke, no one-"

Tears felt heatless. I almost appreciated his touch, certainly appreciated his dear _attempt_, but suddenly I was realizing that was only the beginning. I was on a roll now, a role, my stagespeech, my multilayered silent soliloquy of life to an audience of one.

He dropped to his knees, lithe. He talked to the boiling water; I stared at his profiled shadow behind me.

"I'm sorry." He said, "Darth Vader was my father."

Selfishness, even reciprocated, died from me, because I could not avoid belief. Those chronicles, those tones of knowledge behind his eyes, --! They came from _here_. I dropped beside him, ignored the heat, fed my palm the rough fabric and hidden muscle of his arm. I could say nothing, but maybe what he knew-

_I'm sorry. _I thought. _"I'm so sorry that--you felt--Endor--We're both drowning--"_

I had pressed close against him, trying to look into his eyes, trying to not shake at the way I could be touching metal and terror and wanting it.

Something of the soldier in me managed to whisper, "Then that is why he killed the Emperor."

"Because of me." He nodded. "But I've _dealt _with that now, and I'm feeling again. I thought I would apologize to you, for what I said after the victory."

"All about love. I've convinced myself love can't be all that important. I mean--" and sitting there I felt fearful, poised, and a little coy, all at the same time. "I want it to be, just a little, compared to all this, Jedi and beauty and life."

He smiled down at me, slight. "I think it must be. Even compared to the Jedi."

"You can't see your self, Skywalker. So very imposing. Masterly." I grinned sideways, just a little, too.

"...then you understand a little, I think."

"I could love you." I said. "But I've been so much..."

He put his arm around me and moved a little closer, and we sat like that for a while.


	6. Jedi Academy

**Six**

Slowly I learned to use the Force. It's like...some of it's like your thoughts have been turned into a pool of water, and all these ripples are running through them, and you learn to read the ripples. Sometimes it's like the whole universe has them, but they're more like...strings, or connecting fog, and it's very easy to pull something toward you along those lines with desire and a curl of the fingers.

Lightsabers rock. That's all there is to that; Best Weapon Ever. The sound--gets inside your ears and clears everything to crystal fight-sense. The techniques move and flow with who you are somehow, and are who I am anyway.

I practiced lightsabers with Corran Horn and an alien named Kell who is good at most things. It's a pounding-the-floor epic kind of fighting we get into here, when here is these huge rooms or grassy ruins where the pounding reassures you it's all real. No laser sword for Cy yet, of course, but we use plastic staves, magnetized along the blade-lengths for realistic reactions.

Kell and I went back and forth with these under the watchful eyes of Master Horn until our hands raised little splotches of blood, and I didn't know plastic forged such blisters. The courtyards in back are beautiful; all green or blue plants and stone in intervals.

A little stirring, and echoing voice in the Force.

I put my sword up and looked at Master Horn. "Master Skywalker wants to talk to me, Master Horn."

He nodded. I ran through a few stone-and-durasteel doorways, up to a raised courtyard and cairn where Luke watched the groups in the near distance. He wore a common brown cloak over white and blood-red, and at first only took my hands in one of his and slid a bacta gauze gently over them. At each blister or abrasion pain flared and then subsided, as the irritation of the skin died down to tan.

He asked, "How are you doing?"

I didn't raise my eyes to him fully, just glimpsed that world in his face. "Ah, good. It's tough, but...I feel great. I feel the Force!"

His hard hands moved minutely around mine and I could just sense a smile. Though I'm no good at a lot of things with the Force. Luke said, "And how am I doing teaching it? I feel so...distanced from them."

"You're fine teaching. You know so much. But yes, distanced." I stilled his hand that held the cool gauze. Now I looked and braved his face. "Why?"

"I don't know."

I squeezed his hand. "I do. You're a hero. We always think heroes are ok, because there are so few."

He smiled loosely, and for a moment it was fleet indecision I sensed, with a soup of rock-hard bravery and affection, and I know he let this leak out for me because you don't read Master Skywalker's mind unless he really wants you to.

He released me with, "Continue your training, my Cy." And I went back down.

**T**his afternoon we fought in the uppermost chamber, a class of eight lightsaber-users with real weapons now and the adults or students who'd been doing this for a while keeping it slow so that no one got any limbs taken off. Some incentive, that. It's not easy to find or build a lightsaber, so I borrowed a man named Kyle's.

Luke paired with me and we fought between others using the precise, elegant moves I had learned on the magnet-sticks. The quick lightsabers, green and blue, sang and growled and hissed. He was just toying with me, but that make it beautiful. Some things-- There were irregularities in the stone. I looked down to add sight to texture-sensation and his lightsaber thrumed over my head. Back up--I had to parry so quickly, and somehow it works, and built. I had been taught to strategize a thought ahead, and he let me practice. We moved untill the Force breathed for me and we grinned like crazies--

At one point, our lightsabers met close and crossed, up over our ears, and Luke's thoughts flashed too quickly for me to catch. Others tried to fill the cavernous room with their hums.

It's time for finishing the beginning of the tale.

I almost pull away from him, and he from me, because we are afraid when the emotion roars in our ears louder than the laser swords in our hands.

"Don't leave me." He pleads. "Don't imagine something fake of me or disappoint me. Just _be...this._"

" We can't let anyone down. That's how it's supposed to be. We can't disappoint--we daren't.

It sounds all too dramatic to be--

FIN


End file.
